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A carefully choreographed ballet in which humans and orcas glide and cavort in the water has long been a compelling part of SeaWorld’s signature Shamu show — until February 2010 when a trainer at the Orlando park lost her life after being attacked by a 12,000-pound killer whale.

While the marine parks still feature the popular Shamu shows, they suspended the in-water interaction between orcas and trainers. But that hasn’t persuaded federal authorities to reverse their citations for safety violations nor drop recommendations that trainers be barred from having close contact with the animals unless protected by some sort of physical barrier.

SeaWorld will go to court Tuesday in hopes of overturning those citations issued by the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which found that the marine park exposed its employees to hazards when performing with killer whales in shows. The appeal, while filed by SeaWorld’s Florida park, affects all the marine parks, including the one in San Diego.

Yes
63% (3318)

No
37% (1919)

5237 total votes.

The court hearing, which comes against the backdrop of continued criticism of SeaWorld by animal rights activists, could well turn into a referendum on the very essence of the parks’ decades-long business model.

SeaWorld’s legal team says as much in its brief, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

“The (administrative law judge’s) order must be overturned because so-called ‘close contact’ between whales and trainers is the cornerstone of SeaWorld’s mission, and requiring its elimination is tantamount to prohibiting the product that SeaWorld has offered the public for nearly 50 years,” say the attorneys, led by Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

SeaWorld recently came under attack in the documentary, “Blackfish,” that is critical of the park for keeping orcas in captivity, reviving the long-running campaign by activists to rid the park of its orca and dolphin population.

“There’s a political battle right now between SeaWorld and those who want to end all animal captivity,” said Robert Niles, editor of ThemeParkInsider.com. “They see getting rid of contact as the first step to making it impossible for SeaWorld to house these animals, and this is one of the reasons SeaWorld is fighting this.

“Can SeaWorld continue to house orcas under a different system? I don’t know but I don’t think that’s a question SeaWorld wants to explore.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had submitted a legal brief, although it wasn’t accepted, to buttress its claims that SeaWorld puts trainers in jeopardy by “holding orcas in conditions that cause them to lash out.”

In captivity, “many orcas develop abnormal behavior that is rarely seen in wild populations, including excessive aggression toward humans and other orcas,” said PETA spokesman David Perle.

At the center of the federal court case is what’s known as the general duty clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act that requires employers to keep their workplaces free of hazards that can kill or seriously harm their employees.

The Labor Department’s attorneys mince no words when describing the serious risks they say SeaWorld trainers face as a part of their job. Working in close contact with killer whales, they contend, led to two deaths and multiple injuries.